Shopping in the Philippines: Best Malls, Markets and What to Buy

Filipinos use malls the way other countries use town squares, and the biggest ones are destinations in themselves. SM Mall of Asia in Pasay, on the bay south of Malate, covers more than 400,000 square metres with an IKEA (the world’s largest when it opened), an ice rink, a 55 m Ferris wheel and the SM by the Bay promenade, where the sunset over Manila Bay at about 6pm is the best free show in the city. SM Megamall on EDSA in Mandaluyong is the other giant, two buildings joined by bridges and a Mega Fashion Hall full of Japanese and Korean chains; its Cyberzone floor is the place for cheap phone cases, chargers and legitimate electronics. Greenbelt in Makati is the upmarket one: five low-rise buildings around a garden and a chapel, with Greenbelt 5 given over to Filipino designers and Greenbelt 3 and 4 to luxury brands. Next door, Glorietta and the Landmark department store sell the same local brands (Bench, Penshoppe, Kamiseta, Human) at mass-market prices, and Landmark’s basement supermarket is the cheapest place in the CBD to buy dried mangoes and coffee to take home.

In BGC, Bonifacio High Street is an open-air mall street of mid-range brands, and the Shangri-La Plaza in Ortigas and Power Plant Mall in Rockwell are the quiet, rich-neighbourhood options. All of them open 10am to 9pm Sunday to Thursday and until 10pm Friday and Saturday, take Visa and Mastercard everywhere and GCash and Maya by QR code, and run the same sale calendar: a 3-Day Sale several times a year with 30 to 70 per cent off, payday weekends on the 15th and 30th, and the long Christmas season from September.

Divisoria, in Tondo and San Nicolas just north of Binondo, is where Manila’s market stalls buy their stock, and anyone can shop at the same wholesale prices. The district is a dozen blocks of stalls, five-storey bargain malls and fabric streets, and the rule is simple: the same T-shirt, phone case or Christmas lantern costs a third of the mall price if you buy three or more. 168 Shopping Mall is the best-known building, five air-conditioned floors of clothes, bags, toys, party supplies and fabric; 999 Mall, 11/88 and Tutuban Center (in the old railway station) are the alternatives, and Ilaya Street is the fabric market where tailors buy by the bolt. Christmas is Divisoria’s season: capiz parol lanterns from PHP 300 to 2,000, tinsel by the kilo, and a crush of shoppers from October to 24 December.

Go on a weekday morning (stalls open around 8am and the malls at 9am, closing by 7pm), carry small notes and nothing in your back pockets, and take a Grab or the LRT-1 to Doroteo Jose or Carriedo rather than driving. Bargain hard for loose stalls, less inside the malls where prices are already wholesale. The quality is mixed, the fakes are open (see below) and bags get slashed in the crowds; it is also a genuine slice of the city that most visitors never see, and the cheapest place in the country to kit out a family in beachwear.

Greenhills Shopping Center in San Juan is the tiangge, or stall market, that Manila’s middle class shops at, and the single best place in the country to buy pearls. The pearl section is several hundred stalls run largely by Muslim traders from Mindanao and Sulu, selling freshwater strands from PHP 300 to 1,500, Akoya-style and Tahitian-dyed pieces from PHP 2,000, and genuine South Sea pearls, white and golden, from about PHP 15,000 for a modest strand to hundreds of thousands for matched 12 mm golds. Prices are negotiable by 20 to 40 per cent, settings can be made while you wait, and stallholders will cheerfully tell you which of their own pieces are “shell pearl” (coated glass) if you ask directly. The rest of Greenhills is phones, electronics and watch stalls in V-Mall (genuine and grey-market side by side; buy sealed boxes with an official receipt and a warranty card, and test the phone before paying), clothes, and a separate wing of branded shops. It opens 10am to 9pm daily, is busiest on weekends and has been under redevelopment since 2019, so sections move around.

Elsewhere, the Salcedo Saturday Market and Legazpi Sunday Market in Makati’s business villages (7am to 2pm) sell Filipino food producers, heirloom rice, cheeses, woven baskets and plants, and the Sidcor Sunday Market at Eton Centris in Quezon City is the bigger, cheaper version. Quiapo, around the church and Hidalgo Street, is the market for camera gear, religious goods and herbal remedies, and the Santa Cruz side of the river has the old bakeries and Chinese hardware streets.

Cebu City shops at Ayala Center Cebu in Cebu Business Park and SM Seaside City on the reclamation area, the latter a 470,000 square metre giant with a rooftop Sky Park; both carry the Kultura and Islands Souvenirs shops that sell the Cebu things worth buying: dried mangoes (cheaper here than in Manila, PHP 120 to 200 for a 200 g bag), otap and rosquillos biscuits, and dried fish. For a Cebu guitar, take a taxi to Abuno in Lapu-Lapu City on Mactan, where the Alegre and Susing workshops have made guitars since the Spanish era; a decent all-solid acoustic costs PHP 8,000 to 25,000 (about $140 to $440), a ukulele from PHP 1,500, and they will build a travel case. Carcar, south of the city, sells chicharon and lechon by the roadside; Argao is the place for torta cakes and tablea.

Baguio is the best market city in the north. The Baguio City Public Market below Session Road sells highland produce (strawberries from La Trinidad in season, December to May), Benguet arabica beans from PHP 350 to 600 per 250 g, walis tambo brooms, peanut brittle and jars of ube jam and strawberry jam; the Good Shepherd Convent near Mines View makes the famous ube jam (PHP 300 to 400 a jar, often sold out by afternoon) and the Mines View stalls sell woodcarvings from the Ifugao carvers of Asin Road. The Harrison Road night market (9pm to about 2am) is the national capital of ukay-ukay, secondhand clothes from Japan and Korea at PHP 50 to 300 a piece. Sagada sells its own arabica and woven goods from the Sagada Weaving shop. In Bicol, Legazpi’s public market and the Ayala and LCC malls are the places for pili nuts (PHP 150 to 400 a pack, candied or roasted) and abaca bags, slippers and hats, Albay being the abaca province. Vigan’s Calle Crisologo stalls and public market sell Ilocos inabel blankets, burnay pottery and Vigan longganisa; Iloilo sells hablon weaves and barquillos; Davao’s Aldevinco Shopping Center is the best single stop for Mindanao textiles, Maranao brassware and Davao tablea, and Bankerohan market for durian candy.

Barong Tagalog, the embroidered formal shirt, is the souvenir with the most range. An off-the-rack barong in jusi (banana-silk blend) or organza costs PHP 1,500 to 5,000 at Kultura, Tesoro’s or the Landmark; a hand-embroidered piña barong woven from pineapple fibre in Aklan around Kalibo and embroidered in Lumban, Laguna, starts around PHP 10,000 and runs past PHP 50,000 for the museum-grade pieces sold at Greenbelt 5 boutiques. Piña-seda (pineapple and silk) shawls and table runners are the affordable way in at PHP 2,000 to 6,000. Capiz shell, the translucent windowpane oyster, becomes lanterns, trays, chandeliers and Christmas parol; it is cheap in Divisoria and well made at Kultura, and it is legal to export (it is a farmed food shell, not coral). Textiles are the best-value craft in the country: Ilocos inabel blankets and towels (PHP 500 to 3,000), T’boli t’nalak from Lake Sebu in South Cotabato (PHP 1,500 to 8,000 a panel), Yakan weaves from Zamboanga, Maranao malong tube skirts and okir-carved brass, and banig mats from Samar. Buy from Kultura, ANTHILL Fabric Gallery in Cebu, the HABI textile fair in Manila each October or from the weaving communities themselves where you can.

Food travels well: 7D and Philippine Brand dried mangoes, tablea cacao tablets from Davao, Batangas or Bohol for hot chocolate, pili nuts, Baguio ube jam, Bulacan pastillas milk sweets from Guiguinto and Malolos, cashews from Antipolo and the coffees: Benguet and Sagada arabica from the Cordillera, Batangas and Cavite barako (a Liberica, strong and smoky, PHP 250 to 450 per 250 g) from Lipa and Tagaytay, and Kalinga and Mount Apo beans from specialty roasters. Ube is everywhere now, as jam, ensaymada, crinkles and cheesecake; Goldilocks and Red Ribbon bakeries in every mall sell boxed ube treats for the flight. The other classic Filipino brands to look for are Rustan’s own-label, Bench, Human and Team Manila for graphic tees, Zarah Juan and Rags2Riches for woven bags, and Islands Souvenirs for the cheap and cheerful.

Bargain in tiangge, markets and Divisoria; never in malls, chain shops, supermarkets or restaurants, where prices are fixed and asking is awkward. In a market, open at 50 to 60 per cent of the first price and expect to settle around 70 to 80 per cent; the magic words are “tawad, po?” (a discount, please?) and “last price?”, and buying two or three items unlocks the real discount. Keep it friendly, a smile does more than a hard face, and walk away rather than argue. Stallholders quote in pesos and you should pay in pesos; dollars get a poor rate.

Malls open 10am to 9pm or 10pm, department stores inside them the same, supermarkets from 8am or 9am, public markets from dawn to early afternoon (the good produce is gone by 10am), Divisoria 8am to 7pm, night markets from about 5pm or 9pm to midnight or later. Nearly everything is open seven days, including Sundays; the exceptions are Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, when malls close or open late, and the morning of New Year’s Day. Cards work in every mall and chain; everywhere else is cash or GCash and Maya QR codes, which you can use with a Philippine SIM and a local top-up. ATMs charge PHP 250 per foreign withdrawal and cap each at PHP 10,000 to 20,000 depending on the bank, so take out the maximum each time, and decline the machine’s “convert to your currency” offer. Prices include 12 per cent VAT; mall receipts show it as a line item.

Until 2024 the Philippines had no tax-free shopping for visitors. Republic Act 12079, signed on 9 December 2024, created a VAT refund for non-resident tourists on goods bought from accredited stores and taken out of the country within 60 days, with a minimum of PHP 3,000 per transaction. The implementing rules were signed in March 2025 and the Department of Finance has been accrediting private refund operators to run the scheme at airports, so the practical side (which stores carry the tax-free sign, whether refunds are paid in cash, to card or through an app, and which terminals have counters) is still settling as of 2026. If a 12 per cent refund matters to a big purchase such as pearls or a piña barong, ask the store whether it is accredited before you pay, keep the receipt and your passport together, and allow time at the airport. Check the Department of Finance for the current status before you travel.

Leaving the Philippines, normal souvenirs need no paperwork. The hard bans are on marine life and cultural property. All corals are protected under the Fisheries Code, so coral jewellery, coral “rock” and the branches sold on some beaches cannot be exported and are seized at the airport; giant clam (Tridacna) shells, sea turtle and hawksbill tortoiseshell items and any nautilus shell are banned under Philippine law and CITES, and many beach-stall shells (triton, helmet, conch) are also regulated, so the safe rule is to buy capiz and nothing else that lived in the sea. Antiques and religious images more than 50 years old need a National Museum export permit, and the Bureau of Customs stops them. You may carry out at most PHP 50,000 in pesos without a Bangko Sentral permit and must declare foreign currency above $10,000.

Arriving home, the usual duty-free allowances apply: $800 for the US, €430 by air for the EU, £390 for the UK, CAD 800 for Canada and AUD 900 for Australia, with the standard 200 cigarettes and about one litre of spirits (Tanduay, lambanog and Don Papa rum are the usual bottles). Dried mangoes, roasted coffee, tablea, pili nuts and sealed jams are allowed almost everywhere; fresh fruit, meat products (longganisa, tocino, chicharon), balut and anything with pork are refused by the US, Australia, New Zealand and the EU, and Australia and New Zealand also screen wooden carvings, woven plant fibre and seeds, so declare them. Check your own country’s biosecurity list before you fill a suitcase with Vigan longganisa.

Philippines travel guide · Best Time · Costs · Culture · Food · Getting Around · Islands · Itineraries · Nightlife · Safety